Amherst's 2011 Fall Town Meeting concluded on Wednesday, November 18, 2011, on its third night. The only article considered that night was Article 17, a proposal for village center rezoning in North Amherst and Atkins Corners, including the creation of a form-based code. The final vote on the article produced the third tally vote of the Fall. The article failed to achieve the two-thirds majority required to pass zoning changes, with a vote tally of 119 YES, 79 NO.
The database at tallyvotes.org has been updated with the tally vote results, along with attendance records for all three sessions of the Fall Town Meeting. Click the links below to see the results from each of the tally votes, or use the "Go to the database" button at the top of the page to access the full database search screen.
Amherst's Fall 2011 Town Meeting continued into its second night on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2011, with 147 members present, and a single tally vote. Article 18 was a non-binding resolution presented by members of the recently-disbanded Committee on Homelessness, seeking to re-establish the committee. The article failed by a vote of 60 YES, 65 NO.
The database at tallyvotes.org has been updated with the results of this vote, along with attendance records from the first two sessions of the meeting.
Amherst's 2011 Fall Town Meeting began on Monday, November 7, 2011, with a single tally vote on the first night of the meeting. Article 5 proposed appropriating $40,000 for the purpose of conducting a prospective residential market analysis for housing in Amherst. The article passed with a vote of 97 YES, 60 NO.
The database at tallyvotes.org has been updated with the results of this vote, along with attendance records from the first session of the meeting.
The recently-concluded 2011 Annual Town Meeting in Amherst had the lowest overall attendance of any Spring Town Meeting in the last ten years (detailed attendance data is only available for years since 2002). Attendance averaged 66.7% over the eight sessions of Town Meeting, beneath the previous low figure of 68.2% in 2002.
Attendance at individual sessions ranged from a high of 78.4% on May 16 (the night the solar project on the old landfill was considered) to a low of 54.8% on May 25 (the final night of Town Meeting, which dealt with several minor zoning articles, along with zoning to allow backyard chickens and rabbits in residential neighborhoods).
Amherst's 2011 Annual Town Meeting concluded on Wednesday, May 25, 2011, on its eighth night. The meeting produced three recorded tally votes, all three regarding the budget for Community Services.
5/2/11 - Amend Community Services budget to add $70K (Failed - 64 YES, 100 NO)
5/9/11 - Reconsider Community Services budget under Article 14 (Passed - 93 YES, 72 NO)
5/9/11 - Community Services budget - increase by $65K (Passed - 92 YES, 75 NO)
All Spring 2011 tally vote results
The database at tallyvotes.org has been updated with the tally vote results, along with attendance records for all eight sessions of the Annual Town Meeting. Click the links below to see the results from each of the tally votes, or use the "Go to the database" button at the top of the page to access the full database search screen.
5/9/11 - Reconsider Community Services budget under Article 14 (Passed - 93 YES, 72 NO)
5/9/11 - Community Services budget - increase by $65K (Passed - 92 YES, 75 NO)
All Spring 2011 tally vote results
The third night of the 2011 Amherst Town Meeting saw two tally votes, both relating to the Community Services portion of the budget under Article 14. This budget appropriation had been voted earlier, but Town Meeting member Julia Rueschmeyer moved to reconsider the appropriation in order to add additional money to fund the operation of War Memorial Pool.
The motion to reconsider went to a tally vote, and passed by a vote of 93 YES, 72 NO. This reopened consideration of the Community Services budget appropriation, with another tally vote on Ms. Rueschmeyer's motion to increase the budget by around $65K. This increase passed by a vote of 92 YES, 75 NO.
The database at tallyvotes.org has been updated with the results of these vote, along with attendance records from the first four sessions of the meeting.
Amherst's 2011 Annual Town Meeting began on Monday, May 2, 2011, with a single tally vote on the first night of the meeting. In the first budget area under Article 14, Community Services, Town Meeting member Hwei-Ling Greeney moved to amend the budget by appropriating an additional $70,000 to fund local human service agencies. This amendment failed by a vote of 64 YES, 100 NO.
The database at tallyvotes.org has been updated with the results of this vote, along with attendance records from the first two sessions of the meeting.
With 2011 Spring Town Meeting approaching, I've made a couple minor improvements to the page that displays tally vote results to better deal with the ever-growing number of votes in the database.
Previously, the results page showed descriptions of all the votes listed at the top of the page. This worked well when there were only a dozen or so votes, but now that the page may be displaying close to 100 votes, it was becoming unwieldy. Now, the vote descriptions are hidden by default, and you can access them by clicking the "Vote Descriptions" header at the top of the page.
In addition, the table of vote results extends horizontally far to the right with a large number of votes. To make it easier to keep track of which row you are looking at, I have added an extra column on the far right showing each member's name, which should reduce the amount of scrolling back and forth needed to view the results.
The tallyvotes.org database now includes historical data from the last decade of annual town elections, showing all candidates and election results for all townwide offices and all precinct-level Town Meeting seats.
This data can be accessed in several ways. The sidebar on the left-hand side of the home page now includes a section called Town Election History, which has an entry for each individual election. Each individual election, such as the 2008 election, has a page which lists all races in that election. Each individual race, such as the 2008 Select Board, or the 2006 Precinct 9 Town Meeting, has a page which shows details on that race, with full results and vote totals (pages for upcoming races just list the candidates for the race).
In addition, the Town Meeting member detail pages, such as my own, now include a section at the bottom showing the full electoral history for that person.
The historical election data, like the tally vote data, is based on information available on the town website (the elections page is here). The data available extends back into the early 1990s, but data prior to 2000 is incomplete. Additional details will be added to the database as more data becomes available.
The nomination deadline for the 2011 Annual Town Election was Tuesday, February 8, 2011, and nominations are now closed. The database has been updated with candidates for all townwide offices, along with candidates for Town Meeting in each precinct. You can examine voting records for the candidates in any specific townwide or precinct-level race.
Candidate turnout for Town Meeting seats was strong this year, with 108 candidates for 96 open seats. This is the highest number of candidates since 2007.
Links for candidates for three-year Town Meeting terms in each precinct are shown below, along with links for each townwide office. For more details, including candidates for shorter Town Meeting terms, go to the main database selection page.
The election will be held on Tuesday, March 29, 2011.
Precinct 1 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 2 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 3 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 4 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 5 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 6 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 7 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 8 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 9 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 10 Town Meeting candidates
Select Board (2 candidates)
School Committee (1 candidate)
Jones Library Trustee (3 candidates)
Moderator (1 candidate)
Oliver Smith Will Elector (1 candidate)
Amherst Redevelopment Authority (2 candidates)
Amherst Housing Authority (1 candidate)
Precinct 1 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 2 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 3 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 4 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 5 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 6 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 7 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 8 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 9 Town Meeting candidates
Precinct 10 Town Meeting candidates
Select Board (2 candidates)
School Committee (1 candidate)
Jones Library Trustee (3 candidates)
Moderator (1 candidate)
Oliver Smith Will Elector (1 candidate)
Amherst Redevelopment Authority (2 candidates)
Amherst Housing Authority (1 candidate)
